


Somewhere In This Darkness

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [33]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post-Hunt, character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:45:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere In This Darkness

XXXIII.

Dean’s hand is full of glass.

Sam’s hands are covered in blood and starting to shake from the fine work of pulling shining fragments from his brother’s skin.

Dean is white to the hairline, his lip red and swollen where he has been biting it. His other hand is clenched tight on his knee and the muscles in his jaw are twitching in a regular rhythm.

And Castiel cannot take any of this any more. 

He strips off the trenchcoat like a matador strips off his cloak, flinging the thing over the back of the nearest chair, and sits down beside Sam. ‘Let me help you.’

Sam looks up at him, ready to be grateful, blinking hard to get his eyes to refocus, but Dean snaps before Sam can say anything.

‘No. It’s fine. Sam can--’

‘Sam is exhausted. And, if you had forgotten, Dean, he is injured himself.’ Castiel lays a hand gently on the bandage, invisible below Sam’s long-sleeved shirt.

Dean grits his teeth. ‘ _No,_ I didn’t fucking _forget_ \-- why the--’ He bites his lip again, winces, and goes on, visibly restraining himself, each word coming out short and neat: ‘I’ll do it myself. You get some rest, Sammy.’ He holds out his bloodied but uninjured hand.

Sam looks at Dean for a long minute, then turns and with deliberation, puts the fine-tip tweezers and cotton he has been using in Castiel’s hands. ‘There’s half the damned window still in there, Cas. Don’t let him tell you different.’

‘I will make sure no glass remains. Go sleep, Sam.’ 

Sam nods and stands up, scraping his bloodied hands against the thighs of his jeans. He looks down at Dean for a minute and Castiel thinks he will say something -- but he just shakes his head and turns away. The door to the adjoining room closes and Dean makes a grab for the tweezers.

‘I can take care of it myself, Castiel.’

Castiel holds the instruments above his head. ‘You cannot, Dean.’

‘I fucking-- I don’t want your help.’ Dean stiffens and bites his lip again, his unbloodied hand clenching. ‘I can do it myself.’

Castiel shakes his head, lowering his hands. ‘You are being foolish. Let me finish cleaning your hand and you can rest before we need to leave this place.’

‘I...’ Dean’s jaw tenses and Castiel can see the rigidity in his muscles, but he holds out his hand. Castiel can see the tendons standing out sharp beneath Dean’s skin and he wants to lean down and touch the spot just below Dean’s wrist with his lips. His fingertips remember the softness there, just below Dean’s palm, and the salty taste of skin.

But there is something wrong between them now and he cannot fix it. Two months -- nearly three -- have gone by since that night at Bobby’s and he has no more idea now what had gone wrong than he had that morning he scrambled into the kitchen and Dean refused to speak to him.

The thought, as always, makes him feel as if he is drowning, as if a cold wave has broken over his head and through his chest and his lungs are no longer working quite right. 

Carefully, he shifts position and supports Dean’s hand with his knee. 

The younger man’s palm is a mess; if he had planned a way to turn his hand into a hash, he could have done no better. The demon’s explosive entry through the plate glass window of the bakery had left Sam with a bad cut to the arm from a flying fragment but Dean had been thrown the length of the shop. He had been lucky not to land full-body in a pile of shattered glass.

‘If you’re gonna do it, do it, okay, Castiel?’ Dean’s voice is rough and Castiel looks up to see that the younger man has fixed his eyes on some point by the door, staring at it as if he need memorize it.

‘Why do you call me Castiel now?’ Castiel wipes away a trickle of blood with a fingertip and reaches forward with the tweezers, teasing at the tip of a glass shard.

‘That’s your name, isn’t it.’ Dean’s voice jerks unexpectedly but the shard is sitting in the wad of cotton wool and no longer in his skin.

‘It is.’ Castiel twitches out another, smaller, fragment. 

‘Answers that question, then.’

Castiel sighs silently, reaching for a clean bit of cotton wadding which he lays gently on Dean’s palm to soak up as much of the slow seep of blood as he can.

‘So how long do you plan to be about this?’ Dean is still staring over his shoulder at the door. 

‘I do not wish your hand to be permanently damaged.’ Castiel removes the wadding and, through fortunate chance, two more fragments of glass which stay lodged in it. He hears Dean hiss through his teeth and, before he can talk himself out of it, pushes a tiny tendril of his Grace through his fingertips, seeking to ease the pain.

‘Is it gonna be?’

‘What?’ Castiel tweezes more glass out.

‘What you said. Permanently damaged.’ Dean mimics Castiel’s voice and Castiel almost smiles before he realises Dean is not attempting to be funny. There is worry in his voice, behind the studied harshness.

‘I do not think so. You have severed no tendons or veins. I imagine it will be sore for many days.’

‘Great.’

‘But, as you once told me, scars make you look tough. I imagine the girls in the bars will appreciate them.’ Castiel hears himself with horror and closes his eyes for a second in silent self-reproach. When he opens them again, he finds Dean is looking at him, studying him.

‘Yeah. I imagine they will.’ Dean is mimicking his voice again.

Castiel swallows hard, looking away from the stony green eyes and down at the bloodied hand. Somehow he has come to cup Dean’s hand with his own, curling his fingers around Dean’s wrist. 

There is a constellation of tiny bits of glass in the mound of Dean’s thumb and Castiel bends to tease them out. He has to concentrate on what he is doing and it gives him a chance to collect himself, to master his sudden desire to grab Dean by the shoulders and shake him, to demand answers, an explanation for his behavior. 

When he looks up again, though, his eyes having started to water from the strain, Dean is still looking at him, gaze considering, thoughtful, as though Dean is weighing him up in some way. 

‘You’ve been watchin’ me.’

‘You say I am always watching you.’ Castiel bends to his task again, flicking out one tiny shard after another and gathering a small shining pile on the blood-stained cotton.

‘Yeah, well, ‘m not wrong--’ Dean hisses in pain again and Castiel bites down on his urge to apologise; he stretches out with his Grace, soothing the bite of the wounds. After a moment, Dean draws a breath and goes on: ‘I’ve seen you, too. Lurkin’ around.’

‘I have not been trying to hide.’ Castiel pulls out the last of the fragments and lets out an involuntary sigh. He lays another piece of fresh wadding over Dean’s palm and prays that this will be the last.

‘What I don’t get is why you’re even still here.’

Castiel closes his eyes for a minute and listens. There is roughness in Dean’s voice, uncaring, and lack of curiosity -- but it sounds false to his ears. It sounds as Dean does when he is lying. 

‘I mean -- don’t you angels have anythin’ better to do with your time than hang around bars with us mud monkeys?’

‘Uriel is wrong to use such language,’ Castiel says automatically. ‘It is unworthy of him.’

Dean snorts. ‘Whatever you say, Cas--Castiel.’

Castiel flicks out the last, larger, fragment of glass from just below Dean’s ring finger and clasps a larger, thicker piece of wadding over his palm, pressing it in place with his own hand and looking up at Dean. ‘If you wish me to go, all you need do is say.’

Dean’s eyes go wide. 

Castiel fixes his gaze on what he is doing, positioning the pad carefully. ‘I am sorry if I hurt you--’

‘With _this?_ Jesus, Cas--’

‘No.’ Castiel wraps bandage over the pad, pulling it tight, making an off-white mitt of Dean’s hand. ‘That night. Before we left Bobby’s house. When we...when I...’ 

Dean makes a strangled noise and Castiel looks up again and, before he can think of anything else to do, he grabs Dean’s shoulders because the younger man looks as if he is about to faint. 

‘Dean! What is wrong! The bandage -- there is still glass in your hand--’ With one hand, Castiel reaches down to scrabble at the binding but Dean’s other hand stops him.

‘’S fine...’s fine...leave it.’ His voice is rough and Dean pauses to cough and clear his throat. 

‘But if it is hurting you--’

‘It isn’t hurting me.’ Dean lifts Castiel’s hand off the bandaging. 

‘Then what has happened? You are injured somewhere else--’ Castiel’s mind flashes back to that afternoon, the burst of power from the demon throwing Dean nearly through the front door of the tiny shop. 

‘No.’ Dean looks up at him, the muscles of his jaw working for a minute. ‘You...you should go, Castiel.’

Castiel stares at him for a minute, not quite believing Dean has said what he heard. Then, slowly, he stands up. ‘You wish me to leave.’

Dean looks down at his hands, examining the bandages on the left. ‘You’re really wastin’ your time bummin’ around with us.’ He looks up with a twisted version of his usual grin and Castiel hates this one: the corners of Dean’s mouth are tucked back and his eyes are dark. ‘Must be somethin’ better you could be up to.’

Castiel nods slowly, feeling a faint feeling of lightheadedness, as if something had taken the oxygen out of the air in the room. ‘Take care of your hand, Dean.’

‘Oh, I will.’ Dean grins again and it is a sick imitation of himself. He lifts his hands. ‘Gotta be ready for those bar chicks, right?’

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "When I'm Gone," 3 Doors Down, _Away From The Sun._


End file.
